The Office for Civil Rights confirmed that the investigation stemmed from individual complaints reported against both schools in August 2011, but declined to provide further details.

Some studies suggest that Asian-American students need higher standardized test scores than white students to be admitted to some colleges.

Harvard rejected the charges of bias.

“Harvard College does not discriminate against Asian-American applicants,” Jeff Neal, a senior communications officer for Harvard, wrote in an e-mail. “Our review of every applicant’s file is highly individualized and holistic, as we give serious consideration to all of the information we receive and all of the ways in which the candidate might contribute to our vibrant educational environment and community.”

He cited the fact that Harvard admitted only 6.3 percent of applicants for the class of 2015 as a possible reason why the student was rejected. “There are inevitably many strong candidates who will be disappointed,” he said.

“We make admissions decisions on a case-by-case basis in our efforts to build a well-rounded, diverse class” a spokesperson for Princeton wrote in an e-mail. “Princeton University treats each application individually and we don’t discriminate on the basis of race or national origin.”

“We would have to look at any case that came to us to make sure that there is a case of discrimination, and I think that disparities in admissions rates and scores could be a piece of evidence,” Ms. Aung said. “But I think that if Asians were categorically being required to score higher than whites in order to gain admissions, that certainly would be something that would require a deeper look as possible evidence of discrimination.”

He studied comprehensive data from 30 different colleges starting in 1997, “and we found that, holding a lot of other things constant, there was a good deal of influence based on race or ethnicity,” Mr. Espenshade said.

Another study by the Center for Equal Opportunity, a nonprofit group opposed to racial preferences in college admissions, found that Asian-Americans at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, had median math and reading SAT scores of 1370 out of 1600, compared with 1340 for white students, 1250 for students of Hispanic descent and 1190 for black students.

Mr. Espenshade cautioned against jumping to conclusions. “The empirical work that we’ve done suggests that Asian-American applicants might be at some competitive disadvantage,” he said.

“Some people say ‘Isn’t that prima facie evidence of discrimination?’ ” He continued, “and I say no, not necessarily. Mainly because we are looking at a portion of information that admissions deans have access to.”

College counselors said they had seen little evidence of pervasive discrimination, but pointed to many factors that could account for the perception of it.

Howard Greene, a school adviser who wrote several “Greene’s Guides” with his son Matthew, called reports of a systemic bias against Asian-American students “a myth.”

He said a glut of academically focused Asian-American candidates applying to top universities made admissions increasingly competitive for them.

“Asian-Americans as a category have the highest rate of high school graduation of any identified group,” Mr. Greene said. “Also, as a cohort, Asian-Americans have the highest SAT and ACT scores.” What may seem to be racial bias “is actually caused by too many people applying to college.”

Jon Reider, the director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, said that about 20 percent of his school’s student body were Asian-Americans.

“I have not seen any pattern at selective colleges in this regard,” he said. “So to me, I’m an agnostic, it’s an open question, I’d want to see the proof.”

Mr. Reider said the competitive nature of admissions was of concern to many students, regardless of their background.

“It’s happening to everybody, so people want to say there’s a reason,” Mr. Reider said. “We like to put blame on things.”

Mr. Greene said he thought a traditional emphasis on “Asian-American families directing their children to math, science, engineering and maybe business” could work against their admissions chances because “there’s not a broad representation of students applying for humanities, English, the arts.”

Recently, a young Asian-American woman that Mr. Greene was counseling asked him to tell her parents, one a doctor and the other a research scientist, that she would “not be a failure in life” because she wanted to major in English in college.

Mr. Reider said the intangible elements of the admissions process made it very difficult for an investigation to prove that an admissions office had acted out of a racial bias.

“You have to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples,” he said. He explained that admissions offices will commonly assign numbers to rate an applicant’s different “hooks” (e.g., their academic success, potential for leadership, etc.).

“What you have to do to find discrimination is to find kids who have relatively the same numbers assigned to them for academic and nonacademic things,” he said, and then determine if there is a pattern of rejection based on race.

Do you think bias against Asian-Americans is widespread in college admissions? Have you ever encountered it? Let us know in the comment box below.

I thought everyone accepted the anti-Asian bias as fact. Asians are just too successful vs the symmetric ideal of proportionate racial success. I don’t know if it’s gotten any better in the last 20 years (since I went to college), but it took a ridiculous credentials to get into Berkeley if you were Asian, based on all the Asian competition and implicit racial quotas. I think it’s less overt now, but “diversity” is still a useful window dressing for social engineering.

“Howard Greene, a school adviser who wrote several “Greene’s Guides” with his son Matthew, called reports of a systemic bias against Asian-American students “a myth.”

He said a glut of academically focused Asian-American candidates applying to top universities made admissions increasingly competitive for THEM.”

…for THEM? There in lies the problem. Asian-Americans are pit against other Asian-Americans instead of against all other applicants. There is a quota for Asians in all top schools. The fear is, if there is no quota and admissions are completely race blind and strictly merit based, all top schools will be overwhelmingly Asian.

Read Daniel Golden’s “The Price of Admission”. Asian-Americans are the new jews(who used to be discriminated against by the Ivies), especially the ones who can’t pay full freight — the middle class, high scoring kids who don’t have any connections. Even after they get in, Asian-Americans continue to be heavily discriminated against and excluded from all the social clubs on campus.

It’s amazing really. Our academia is overrun by liberals, who never hesitate to call anyone racist, yet themselves are the most racist people on earth. By insisting on upholding affirmative action in college admissions, they ensure that America continues to be an extremely race sensitive society where everything is based on race.

For Asian-Americans, I say take heart. Competition only makes you stronger. And who cares about the Ivy League, their mission is never to educate the best. Their main mission is to live off their “old money” prestige by rubber stamping the diploma of the offsprings of the rich and powerful, before ushering them into pre-ordained careers on Wall Street and Washington DC to further enhance the schools reputation and future coffer. A few “colored folks” get to come along for the ride just so they could claim equality.

At the end of the day, an ivy league degree only matters if you want to a degree of the idle rich, i.e. a liberal arts degree, before going into law, wall street, politics or academia, all are careers that depend heavily on connections. If you don’t have a rich/famous daddy or mommy, and want a career in STEM or accounting, i.e. a major that actually leads to a real job, you should just go to a top school for the field you are interested in, or go to a big state university. None of the ivies are considered top schools in any STEM field. Let the idle rich have their own paradise without it being contaminated by the commoners.

I agree that it is most likely a myth. As is the completely academically focused Asian with no ECs. I think it’s likely that, as one person in the article pointed out, Asians as a group score higher on standardized tests and maybe even GPA. Yet if schools truly do a holistic review of candidates and pick them on an overall basis, if one were to look only at scores, it would look like Asians were being unfairly discriminated against. It’s speculative to have an opinion either way, and it is definitely worth looking at, to ensure fairness. Maybe the non-Asians as a group have more legacies, athletes, etc. than Asians and the non-Asians have lower scores as a group when compared to Asians – that may be all that is creating the perception of bias. Schools do want more than just test scores these days, for better or for worse. They want a “well-rounded student body” they say. Admissions at elite colleges is so difficult anymore, it’s no wonder that people look for reasons. My son has spectacular numbers, is an athlete, student government, clubs, volunteers, etc. yet got rejected at Stanford REA this year. I wasn’t surprised at all, as he has no serious “hook.” And the admission rate is ridiculously low after you subtract athletes, legacies, etc. Probably 2-3 percent. Such is life.

Yes, and it’s funny how diversity cuts only when it comes to academics. With sports, it has to all be about talent. Do people care about diversity there?

In fact with Jeremy Lin blowing up recently, people should examine his road to where he is now. He is definitely the minority AND he had great success all the way from High School on but met adversity.

Winning states in California and not getting recruited seriously for college play? Ethnicity a strike in sports, in academics, …either go all fair all the way or strive for diversity all the way. Don’t mix and match as you see convenient.

In his statement, “What may seem to be racial bias “is actually caused by too many people applying to college,”” Mr. Jon Reider seems to say the complaint is because the total number of Asians getting rejected. That is not bias. The point is “all things equal, Asians are not getting in as some other ethnic groups are.”

He is right to say, “We like to put blame on things.” However, to this reader, he is actually blaming people making the complaints.

When he said, “I have not seen any pattern at selective colleges in this regard,” maybe the interviewer should have pointed him to the Espenshade study.

As about Mr. Greene, his statement below seems to say that if one looks at the majors individually, then the the Espenshade type of study will show the claim of bias is a myth. I hope he can prove this IS a myth as that will be the best for everyone involved.

This is what he said: “traditional emphasis on “Asian-American families directing their children to math, science, engineering and maybe business” could work against their admissions chances because “there’s not a broad representation of students applying for humanities, English, the arts.”

It would be helpful to get some more detailed information, both application/admission statistics and descriptions of schools’ admissions processes, to evaluate this disturbing piece. The place to start would be simple statistics of the sort that make up a prima facie disparate impact claim in the world of employment discrimination litigation: for each school, what are the respective percentages of each racial/ethnic category in the applicant pool and the admitted group? Then, how do they break down into cohorts by SAT/ACT score and grade point average? To deal with some of the arguments by those quoted in the article (including Espenshade, who seems to be backpedaling away from his work in order to continue to support affirmative action for certain groups), how do factors other than race/ethnicity factor into the admissions decision? Are race/ethnicity looked at first in making a rough cut? Are the soft criteria like “leadership potential” looked at first? Are the objective and subjective factors all considered simultaneously? Does the admissions office have a target range based on proportional representation? Do they have a floor below which they will not go to pick up underrepresented minorities? Crucially, is the candidate’s race/ethnicity known to the admissions decision-makers when they are making subjective evaluations about “hooks”? In short, which element or elements of the admission process are causing the disparate impact, and why? Mr. Reider’s point that you need to control for each variable and compare apples to apples is sound as far as it goes, but it begs the question if points assigned for subjective variables are skewed to counter built-in headwinds as to test scores and grades so as to justify a racially pre-determined outcome. One would really need an independent assessment of the applicants’ credentials for “leadership,” “creativity,” etc. to determine if they were fairly weighted.

People want to believe that admissions is solely a numbers game–the kid with a 2300 SAT and 3.9 GPA should be admitted before a kid with a 2150 SAT and a 3.8 GPA. But for admissions people, those numbers are essentially identical. What makes the difference is what else those kids have done beyond the numbers — maybe the 2300 SAT kid is a member of the math team and plays piano, and the 2150 SAT kid has founded a literary magazine, has volunteered for many years for Habitat, has worked a summer job, and is a member of the math team and plays piano. The second kids may be admitted over the first — regardless of racial background.

In the book “SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions”, previously reviewed in the Choice Blog, there is a chapter by Jay Rosner which presents evidence of “serious racial and gender biases in the question selection process for the SAT” (p. 202). Might it be possible that the SAT itself is biased in favor of Asian Americans over other racial groups, and if so, is this possibility being investigated as part of the OCR’s discrimination case?

The Princeton admission officer’s statement that they review applications on a case-by-case basis “to build a … diverse class” says it all. Then we have Mr. Greene, the adviser, who thinks discrimination is a “myth” going on to say there are “too many” Asians graduating from high school with very high scores applying to college. Anyone who’s been exposed to recent college admission’s process knows that as an Asian you have to do a LOT better than whites to get in. “Diversity” as a criteria in admissions should simply be banned–may the most qualified person get in.

“‘What you have to do to find discrimination is to find kids who have relatively the same numbers assigned to them for academic and nonacademic things,’ he said, and then determine if there is a pattern of rejection based on race.”

What about if the assignment of numbers is influenced by race? What if college counselors (perhaps subconciously) place less weight on a candidate’s hooks when they see an Asian last name or see the ‘Asian’ ethnicity box checked off? Mr. Reider says, “I’d want to see the proof.” How will you find PROOF of the subtle bias which may influence decision making, intentionally or otherwise?

I think this article makes “Asian-American” to be a very monolithic population. To truly understand the issue, it’s really important to look at differences by specific sub-groups. My hunch is that Chinese or Korean American applicants would be at a competitive disadvantage, since these groups would not be considered an under-represented minority. I think the story may be different for American-born applicants whose ancestry or ethnic origin is ancestry or ethnic origin
is Hmong, Indonesian, Malaysian, Taiwanese, and Thai, just to name a few.

If this is getting attention because Asians need higher scores than whites to get in, then why not extend it to all races? I personally think race should not even be asked for on a college application. I see it all the time at my school where highly ranked white and Asian kids with great test scores and extracurricular involvement get rejected from top schools while Hispanics with mediocre grades and test scores and perhaps one or two EC commitments get into those same schools. Keep in mind that I am one of those Hispanic kids and I still find this overt discrimination to be disgusting. My ethnicity in itself has not disadvantaged me and neither has anybody else’s nowadays.

If the elite colleges are truly race-blind in admission process, they should remove names and ethnicity from candidate applications and use social security numbers instead. They won’t do it because they will end up with many more Asians. UC Berkeley, one of the top public universities, has seen a rising share of Asians in recent years/decades.

As Daniel Golden pointed out in his book “The Price of Admission”, Asian-Americans as a group is the most hurt by their stereo-type: studious, good in math, plays piano/violin(though usually mediocre), good in test taking, lack creativity, pushed to the death by their non-English speaking immigrant parents to major in biology at Harvard. Hence if your last name is Sun, Park, Kim or any 2 or 3 letter words, you might as well forget Harvard-Yale-Princeton. Ditto if you are Asian and graduated from one of those magnet high schools in NYC with a strong focus on STEM like Stuyvesant or Brooklyn Tech, which are over 50% Asian.

From the point of view of the Ivy League schools, it’s a delicate balance to achieve. If they admit too many unhooked applicants(which most Asian kids are), they’ll lose their prestige, which is derived primarily from the student body – a place for children of the rich, powerful and well connected from Wall Street to Washignton DC to Hollywood to party for 4 years and get their Liberal Arts diploma rubber-stamped before going on to a ready made career in politics, finance or law.

Ivy League schools esp. Harvard-Princeton-Yale are primarily Liberal Arts colleges. Liberals Arts degrees are the degrees of the idle rich…yesterday’s aristocrats, today’s self-righteous hypocritical liberals aspiring to careers in media, academia, law, politics. Asian-Americans are of course free to join that rank, but The Asians I know tend to think of Liberal Arts as majors for the slackers and the not-so-smart who couldn’t hack it in STEM. Those who are looking for a good STEM career (not just Asians, but anyone) should simply look elsewhere, like any of the thousands of large and small state universities across the country that are much stronger in STEM, as well as private schools like MIT, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Carnegie-Mellon etc. that are known for their STEM programs.

Therefore, if Asian-Americans are rejected in larger number by the Ivies, I’d say it’s because there is a mismatch between the schools’ main mission and the students’ aspiration. At the end of the day, all the Ivies are private colleges and should be able to set their own admissions criteria any which way they see fit. Perhaps Asian-Americans just need to search for schools that are the best fit for their field of interests, rather than simply wanting to get into to the “best” schools. Ask yourselves, best for what and for who?

My Caucasian son had a perfect 2400 sat score and a 4.0 unweighted GPA at a top nationally ranked high school. Yet he was not accepted to the 3 Ivies he applied to. We are not bitter – the Ivies have every right to seek a diverse student body in terms of academics, interests, race, sports, etc. I only wish to point out that talented people of all races are being rejected.

If a public funded school has a racial quota for its admission, I think it is discrimination. Every body in this country pay taxes. There are no racial quota for our tax system. Asian Americans do not pay less taxes.

Since University of California system revoked its affirmative action. The enrollment of Asian American students in University of California has increased significantly. This supports the notion that Asian American students were discriminated during previous admission process when affirmative action or racial quota were used.

KG, This is not about bitterness. This is about fairness. I agree that many talented people of all races, including your son, were being rejected by Ivies. These could be random. However, if you look more closely, you may find out this may not be random at all.

Meaningless subjective criteria, there are many Asian Americans who had music lessons in their childhood,do you mean to tell me that the Harvard admissions staff is capable of determining as to which Asian American violinist applicant is better than another Asian American violinist applicant?

@ MoM

And Asian Americans who were born and raised her have higher mean verbal scores in the SAT than whites, are you now going to suggest to us that the verbal portion of the SAT is biased in favor of Asian Americans who were born and raised in this country? Asian Americans that are admitted by Harvard
and Stanford are used by those schools and other private schools to raise the mean SAT score of the entering freshman class and depress the admission rate thus making it look good in the eyes of the public.

Mandatory reading for anyone concerned about this subject: Malcolm Gladwell’s October 10, 2005, piece in The New Yorker, “Getting In: The Social Logic of the Ivy League. ” It is fascinating and details how in the 1920s the Ivy League realized that if they went solely by academic credentials (as most non-U.S. universities did then and do now) they would be admitting too many Jews. So the Ivy League changed their admissions criteria from an academic assessment to a “holistic” assessment.

This methodology is still in place, and though it was developed in the 1920s to limit the percentage of Jews admitted, the same criteria are now probably used to limit the percentage of Asians.

I would be more sympathetic to arguments about bias if the result of not getting into Harvard were having to dig coal or go rag picking on some massive landfill. More commonly, the result of not getting into Harvard is having to go to, oh, I don’t know, Tufts, or Penn, or Oberlin, or Stanford, or Amherst, or (perish the thought) the University of Michigan. So please, everyone, give me a break.
If you hadn’t already noticed, the entire nature of college admission is discriminatory, meaning that choices have to be made and some people get in some places and some don’t.
This story is really about the perception that not getting into Harvard (or pick your “elite” school) denies you the opportunity to partake of American society’s advantages, and that is definitely NOT what happens as a result of not getting in there. So stop whining. Imagine what real racial discrimination was like and then feel ashamed that you think not getting into the college of your choice is the same thing.

Of course there is bias! As there is against Jews from the tri-state area and any group that is already over-represented at these schools and does not meet the Ivies and near Ivies agenda for creating a “diverse” student body.
The days of the elite schools being simply meritocracy is over. Of course, they never were purely meritocracies, because if Mom or Dad went to school there, donated more than 7 figures or you were an athlete that also gave you an incredible leap over all of the other non connected applicants. There was a brief window in the late 1960 to the late 1980s when the rest of the spots that were left over went to those with the highest grade scores, entrance exam scores followed by extracurricular or other notable achievements.
Knowing two college admissions officers at two separate Ivies I can attest to the truth in this.